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SIG/Kernel meeting 2023-11-30

Attendees

  • Sherif Nagy
  • Neil Hanlon
  • Pratham Patel
  • Mustafa Gezen
  • Pablo Greco

Discussions

  • This SIG does have some overlap with SIG/Altarch
    • Altarch was expecting to base on elrepo
    • Two options: mainline and LTS. Default to Mainline
  • Two kernels right now:
    • LTS - manual, done by Pablo
    • Mainline - kernel packer in Peridotv2
      • standard config from upstream doesn't support a lot of our SBCs
      • intending to stay as close to upstream as possible
        • Upstream == fedora rawhide branch's RHEL configs
      • ** Can we build a kernel-mainline artifact for altarch. e.g., kernel-mainline-sbc like kernel-rt/64ka **
        • Alternatively, we can create a new package for that name, but that is probably a lot of rework (?)
  • ELrepo contributions
    • What changes are we going to contribute?
      • There are some subset of changes which are beneficial to the overall ecosystem (like an SBC variant which is disabled by default)
      • There's some stuff they might not want to use, and our specs will definitely change over time, not necessarily in step with ELRepo
  • Mainline variant for SBCs
    • Two options: subpackage of mainline or discrete packed kernel with a new name
    • Leaning towards a discrete package which can be 'packed' directly into git.r.o/sig/altarch/ namespace, if needed
  • Idea on generating kernel configs for SBCs
    • For some sbcs we need to boot via dtb and not acpi so we require mainline kernel
      • usually require drivers which are disabled by default
    • https://git.resf.org/thefossguy/kernel-elrepo/commit/ff349cb79376d1ef4b80c4f8c2cb07703dc3db5e
    • Pablo: Fedora is generally open to enabling these in those configs, and are usually enabled already
      • RHEL configs are a lot more conservative as they only enable what they need
      • Harder to go from RHEL -> working SBC than Fedora -> working (typically), so this is the approach usually he takes
      • ELRepo is in the middle :)
      • Recommends starting with fedora than trying to work backwards
        • Pratham will try this
    • Also working on comparing 9.2 configs to 9.3 with prior work on sbc enablement
      • seems to be working (booting) where elrepo kernel was not
      • need to work out when acpi is not there
  • https://gitlab.com/cki-project/kernel-ark
  • Mainline kernel is 6.5 right now, we will go to 6.6
    • There is an issue with 6.7, we have issues w/ NX and shim
    • There is an exception for Linux distributions right now, but we won't be able to sign 6.7 without a new shim
    • We'll try and hold onto 6.6 for as long as we can -- and that's OK
    • May need to have non-nx and nx-ready shim
      • :upside-down-face:
  • Sherif will be working on LTS 6.1 on x86 a bit this week

Action items

  • Documentation on SIG
    • Kernel packer - Mustafa
      • Specfile derrived from ELRepo
      • Configs derrived from s.fp.o/rpms/kernel (rawhide branch, RHEL configs)
      • Sources from kernel.org
    • Roles / Responsibilities - Neil / Sherif
    • Onboarding - Neil
    • Update membership - Neil
    • Usage instructions
      • What packages are available, what are they, etc
    • Secureboot info
  • Update kernel-mainline to 6.6 - Neil / Mustafa
  • Write ticket about shim / kernel 6.7 issues (for tracking and visibility) - Neil
  • Setup and document creation of variant for mainline-sbc - Mustafa / Sherif / Neil
  • Develop plan on how to contribute our changes to ELRepo - Neil
  • LTS 6.1 not compiling on x86 - Sherif
  • Write SIG update for Fresh Air newsletter - Neil

Old business

2023-11-28

  • Published kernel-mainline!